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I never got into Columbus Day much even as a kid. I guess that is because the only holidays that were important enough to quit making steel were Christmas and Easter. In those cases, dad was home. The whole trip across the ocean thing was heroic, don’t get me wrong but I have always considered his bravery was a little tarnished because after all....he got lost. He actually thought the world was a lot smaller than it is and he thought he’d made it all the way to the Phillipines. That’s not just a wrong turn......

Unfortunately for the natives Columbus was an inept sailor. But he knew how to conquer better. The first in a long line of people who captured, enslaved, infected and killed off the competition. It was lucky for me Columbus threw his anchor out in the Bahamas because eventually my ancestors benefitted from all that manifest destiny. I’m probably sitting right now on Seneca Chief Cornplanters happy hunting grounds near the mink river. Cornplanter took a symbolic “knee” against the revolutionaries and fought with the Loyalists. But when the war went south so to speak, he negotiated with the new government for better treatment. Unfortunately, he learned that like all politicians, Washington and Jefferson were incapable of keeping their word.

You can fish and ride a nice speedboat on the lake that was created when they built a dam and flooded his land. Electricity being more important than promises.

So while I’m really glad I got to have a day off work for many years on Columbus Day.....it might be more fitting to recognize indigenous people......or maybe just go to work and not do a celebratory dance in the end zone.

This is traditionally the day I plant garlic in my garden. The weather is fine... I will wait for the temperature to warm up a little. I plant cloves from the biggest and best bulbs from the summer harvest. It is a great saving to be self-sufficient in garlic.

Happy day off wage slavery for those who get it. (yes I do know this is only government and bank workers, and that the vast majority are trudging to work, but still).

What the people crusading about Columbus day don't' realize is no one gives a flip, because noone really celebrates columbus on columbus day anyway save a few italian communities and even that's not exactly what they are celebrating really (they are more just celebrating being italian ok). All they care is if they have a day off or not (and even though I don't I'm grateful traffic is lighter - so I even have *selfish* reasons to be pro other people getting a day off).

I think the p.c. crusaders couldn't even get people a day off work, so it is plenty worrisome to see them campaign against holdiays as people could lose something real, a day off, and only get symbolism in return. The case in point on how they can't do much good and can only take and never give: MLK day: now MLK is a fine guy to honor with a day off of course, but they've never succeeded in extended that day off to anyone but you got it: government and bank workers. So kind of: go after statues if you want, but keep your hands off our days off work thanks.

Yes native people's were treated horribly, the only people who really care about that in any way that can have an influence on anything on the present were say standing with the water protestors, or working to improve things on reservations or so on, they aren't engaged in empty talk. There are native tribes in other countries to this day that have never been contacted that are being driven off their land, but whether or not we get a day off for Columbus day changes that not at all.

If you want something to get done, ask a busy person. If you want them to have a nervous breakdown that is.

I read that the city of Austin has proclaimed it as something like National Indigenous People's Day.

That seems to be a trend; I'm fine with it.
There's a theory that Columbus was a crypto-Jew, eager to remove himself from the Inquisition. That interests me.

ETA: There have been scores of "discoverers" of the Americas--from the North, from the East, maybe from other worlds entirely . It seems capricious to single out Columbus, aside from the issues of rape and genocide.

Happy day off wage slavery for those who get it. (yes I do know this is only government and bank workers, and that the vast majority are trudging to work, but still)......

Additional information....that would beFederal government workers as not all states give their state employees the day off. I worked for a state agency for 28 years and never got Columbus Day off (nor do current state employees). The only way I know it is Columbus Day is when I go to the mailbox and remember because there is no mail. We did get Veteran's Day off and just for kicks we used to call it Christmas Shopping Day mostly to irritate those who did not know anything about Veterans Day. It was a good opportunity to then explain what Veteran's Day was all about. When I was working for the state I said I would take anyone's birthday off as a paid holiday

You know you've achieved a sort of immortality when the debunkers, deplorers and decriers come out of the woodwork centuries after you're dust. Possibly millions of them all over the Americas; although few seem willing to give up their share of his wicked legacy and return to the Old World.